Saunders
is the English spelling for the most part,
Sanders the
American spelling. The table below shows the approximate
breakdown of the numbers
today.

Numbers (000's)

UK

America

Elsewhere (1)

Saunders

54

23

20

Sanders

24

62

19

(1) Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Early Saunders in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire

Name

Date

Location

Robert

1380-1430

Harrington, Northamptonshire

William

1420-1490

Agmondesham (Amersham),
Buckinghamshire

Rev.
William

1430-1450

Hinton, Northamptonshire

William

1469

Mayor of Coventry

Thomas

1480-1530

Sibbertoft, Northamptonshire

Sir William

1490-1540

Welford, Northamptonshire

The
various Northamptonshire lines above are
probably related.Lawrence Saunders, the
son of Thomas from Sibbertoft, was a Protestant martyr who was burned
at the stake in
1555.

The
1488 will of William Saunders
of Amersham in Buckinghamshire has survived. Latter Saunders of this
line
established themselves in the 17th century at the Beechwood estate in
Flamstead in nearby Hertfordshire.There is a
monument to these
Saunders in the local church.

Early Saunders in the West Country

The
Patent Rolls
of 1400 showed the
existence of a Thomas Saunders as the deputy to John Payn, the King's
chief
butler, in the port of Bristol.In 1404
he appears in the office of gauger of wines at the port and there was
later
mention of him in 1423.Wills related to
the Saunders family in Bristol have survived from the 1480's onwards.

A Saunders
branch flourished at Keynsham in Somerset from at least the early 16th
century
down into the 19th century. A Thomas Saunders recorded his will at
Chewton Keynsham in 1528.Richard Saunders
was taxed there in 1609.He bought a 99
year lease on three mills in 1616 and died in 1618.The family consisted of well-to-do yeoman
farmers and butchers.

There were other
Saunders lines at Chew Stoke near Bristol and Bridgwater in Somerset
from the
1540’s.

The Sanders Family and the
Shakespeare
Portrait

It
is believed by the Sanders family that either John Sanders or his
brother William painted a portrait of Shakespeare in 1603 when the
family was said to be living close to Shakespeare's home in London.

An oral tradition holds that for four hundred years the portrait was
passed down in the Sanders family while knowledge of its existence
remained private. Its ownership was verified in 1909 when M. H.
Spielmann studied the painting. At this time it was in the hands
of T. Hale Sanders who had taken ownership of it from his uncle through
his father Thomas Hale. In 1919 Agnes Hale Sanders traveled from
Montreal to London to reclaim the Sanders portrait. Since then it
has been held in Canada.

Is the Sanders portrait real? Spielmann himself did not believe
so. And its authenticity has not been widely accepted by other
scholars. The main problem is that it does not look much like
Shakespeare. The portrait does not seem to resemble either the
Droeshout portrast or the Shakespeare funeral bust, both of which
resemble each other and have been accepted by scholars as having been
contemporary likenesses of Shakespeare. Some say outright that
this portrait is a fake.

The Saunders of
Saunders Grove of Wicklow

These
Saunders claimed a suspiciously
long and noble lineage, dating back to the Hapsburg lords of Innsbruck
in
present day Austria.Sir Harloven Saundres
came to England in 1370 and was supposedly the forebear of Robert
Saunders, a
soldier in Cromwell’s army who stayed in Ireland and became governor of
Kinsale.His family established
themselves at Saunders Grove in Wicklow.

The Saunders Family in
Virginia

Colonel
James Saunders, of Alabama was a descendant of
Edward Saunders, an early settler in Virginia. In his book Early
Settlers, he wrote as follows of his branch of the
family:

"The
Saunders family, according to its tradition, is of English
descent.Edward Saunders was its
progenitor in America, and its first settlement was in the Northern
Neck of Virginia
in Northumberland county.Precisely when
Edward came to Virginia, tradition does not say.He
had, however, a son named Ebenezer, born
in 1661 in Virginia, who left a son named Edward.This
Edward was listed as a vestryman and
captain in the same county in 1720.

William,
his eldest son and born in 1718,
was the lineal ancestor of our family.A
family memoir described William as being about five feet eight
inches in height, well made, of light complexion and blue eyes, from
150 to 160
pounds in weight, very active and fleet, possessed of agreeable
manners, and a
good education for the times.”

Many
Saunders of this family left Virginia after
the Revolutionary War.Some were in
Maryland.The Rev. Turner Saunders
departed for Tennessee in 1808.Colonel
James’s line ended up in Alabama.

Joseph
Saunders' Bible Entries

Joseph
Saunders owned a large family Bible wherein are
recorded the events of the family with respect to births and deaths. As
head of
the household, Joseph diligently scribed in his elegant handwriting the
births
and deaths in his family during his lifetime. The following is a
transcript of
his writing:

“Joseph
Saunders was born
at Farnham Royal in the county of Buckinghamshire on the eighth day of
January
1712and his wife Hannah Saunders was
born at Whitby in the county of York on the 5th of November 1717and they were married at Philadelphia on the
eighth day of January 1740.

DEATHS
My daughter
Mary, wife of Thomas Morris, died on the (blank) day of July 1774.My son Peter Saunders left Philadelphia on the
22nd December 1780 in the company of John Benezet in order to embark
with him on
the ship Shelaley bound for Port
Lercon in France with the intention to stay there and in Holland for
about a
year.They embarked at Chester and
proceeded, but were never heard from after leaving Delaware Bay.There were about eighty passengers and seamen
on board and it is supposed they foundered at sea.
My wife died on the 8th
February 1788 and was buried on the 11th in the afternoon.
My daughter Lydia, wife of Samuel Coates,
died on the 24th October 1789 about four o’clock in the morning and was
buried on
the 26th in the afternoon.
My daughter
Sarah, wife of William Redwood, died on the 29th October 1789 in the
morning and
was buried on the 31st in the afternoon.
My son John died in Alexandria on the 18th May 1790 was buried on the
20th.
The affectionate and much loved father of this family deceased on the
26th
January 1792 at the home of Samuel Coates in Philadelphia."

The Sanders
Brothers from North Carolina

The
forebears of these Sanders brothers were
originally Saunders in Virginia.The
Saunders must have migrated south into what are now Randolph and
Montgomery
counties
in North Carolina by the 1770’s.There
were
to be found four Sanders brothers – William, Isaac, the Rev. Moses, and
Francis.

A
descendant T.B. Sanders,
recalling those times, wrote from Texas in the 1890’s:

“My grandfather William married in Virginia
and was killed in a fight with the Tories.Isaac was the first man that ever built a house on Cross Creek
below
Fayetteville.Another brother by the
name of Moses was a Baptist preacher.I
have seen Isaac and his wife when they were very old.Two of his sons, Ben and Joe, moved to
Alabama and their families are there yet.”

The
Rev. Moses Sanders moved to Georgia in 1798 and founded the Grove
Level church in Franklin county in 1802.He preached there until shortly before his death in 1817.In
1902 a great grandson,
Christopher Columbus Sanders, funded a cemetery marker for the Rev.
Sanders on
the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Grove Level church.